Annals of innuendo

Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax is a Carpinteria, California, brand of surfwax manufactured for use on surfboards. This wax is rubbed on the top surface or “deck” of a surfboard to allow traction and grip for the surfer.

Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax was first produced by Frederick Charles Herzog, III (Mr. Zog) and chemist Nate Skinner in 1972. Hank Pitcher designed their original logo.

Due to the product name, promotional materials such as bumper stickers and t-shirts became extremely popular, even among those who had never ridden a surfboard. Their slogans, such as “The best for your stick”, included innuendos of non-surfing uses. The materials confirmed their counterculture status by being banned from schools and amusement parks.

Different wax formulations are sold under the names: “Quick Humps”, “Really Tacky”, and “Navel Wax”.

Crude but entertaining.

The town of Carpinteria is at the southern edge of the central coast, the area where my dad (and my mother and my stepmother) lived:

(#2)

Just west of Carpinteria are Montecito and Santa Barbara, scenes of fires this December and landslides last month.

(My father and mother lived in Santa Barbara for a while, then in Solvang. My father and stepmother lived in Arroyo Grande, by Pismo Beach.)